The scope of our war
by smaragdbird
Summary: Shaw wins at Cuba, and Charles and Erik have bigger problems than mutant rights. They still have their philosophical differences, but the enemy of my enemy is my friend. warning for slash, violence and character death


It was over in a split second. A bright flash blinded all of them, someone screamed and then there was the sound of moving metal, heat so great that it boiled the ocean underneath them and killed everything in an eight kilometre radius.

Next was the blast wave. It wasn't a sound. It was nothing like those explosions in the movies, just a short, intense feeling of pressure like the take-off of a plane coupled with standing right next to the speakers that only played bass sounds turned on to the max.

The jet was build strong enough to withstand that kind of explosion but neither the Soviet nor the American fleets had been. No amount of diplomacy could save them now. Shaw had his war.

"Erik!" Charles yelled just when the plane began to sack. The electronics had been fried. There was no searching for the point between serenity and rage now, it was pure, undiluted anger that pulsed through him and made him able to land the plane on the beach.

Moira was dead. She hung limply in her seat, eyes open in shock. Shaw had been right when he had said that the nuclear fallout wouldn't kill mutants. Her skin was burned where it was exposed to the air and probably underneath her clothes as well.

Charles leaned over to close her eyes. Her lashes crumbled underneath his fingers.

They staggered out of the jet and into a world of total destruction. The sea was boiling, dead fish swimming on the surface and behind them Cuba was burning. Ships, Soviet and American littered the sea, half molten, pressed together like empty tin cans. The wind came from the seaside but it carried no screams with it.

No one had survived. And Shaw was gone.

Erik felt betrayed of his revenge.

Betrayed and relieved and sick at the small triumphant feeling he had when he saw Charles' devastated, wrecked expression. He shouldn't feel like this but he couldn't help feeling that he had been right and it had been proven to Charles.

Raven had put her hands over her mouth, crying while Hank awkwardly tried to hug her. Sean had tears in his eyes, too, his wide open eyes as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

Alex though, Alex was shaking with anger just like Erik.

"Charles, "Erik swallowed down every other remark he could have said. Now was not the time. He shook his friend's shoulder. "Charles we need to leave. We need to find Shaw before it gets worse."

"Worse?" Alex laughed, a manic streak in his voice. "The world has ended. How can it get any worse?"

Next to him Erik could feel Charles rising to his feet.

"By letting Shaw win the war and kill every single human while rallying the mutants under his banner." Charles' voice gained strength with every word, determination replacing the wrecked expression of losing on his face. He was stronger than Erik had given him credit for.

"If we capture Shaw and present him to the governments of America and the Soviet Union then maybe we can end this war." Unfortunately that also included Charles' credulity.

/

It turned out they needn't to have bothered because neither the US nor the Soviet governmental body was still alive and functional.

And Shaw wasn't hiding but broadcasting over the radio, asking those who were alive to join him. Him and the other Children of the Atom. The government was gone, the military decimated and incapable of acting on a larger scale except to drop more bombs onto the Eastern half of the world and there was no civil defence plan.

People flocked around Shaw like bees around a hive. And radiation sickness took care of those who weren't part of Shaw's vision soon enough.

And still there were bombs falling from the sky.

/

They returned to Westchester only to find it a crumbled ruin, destroyed by the same missiles that flattened most of New York City.

They buried Moira in the garden and tried to salvage what they could find from the ruin of the mansion which wasn't much. Still, they slept there, huddled together, too exhausted to walk another step.

/

Erik still felt that sickening emotion of triumph when he saw the burning world or Charles' face lips pressed thinly together, ignoring the whimpering of the dying humans at their feet. People died where they fell and no one was left to bury or burn them. The stench was as unbearable as the sight of them.

Charles tried to give an uplifting speech once until Raven cut him short, snapping "Fuck you, Charles."

Alex asked bitterly. "We kill him and what then? The world's not magically going to restore itself."

"We kill Shaw," Erik emphasised but there was no protest from Charles and Erik's inner triumph gained a bitter note. "We kill him and then we rebuild this world. We don't have to fear humans anymore, they're all going to be dead sooner or later."

"My mum and my dad are humans." Sean whispered brokenly and it cut so deeply into Erik that he thought he couldn't breathe. His mother had been human, too.

It was a bad sign that even Charles didn't offer a token "I'm sure they'll be fine."

"Do you understand it now?" Charles asked later that night when they had curled up together again for sleep. There was the same triumphant undertone in his voice that Erik had tried to suppress for weeks now. "It doesn't matter whether they're all like Shaw or all like Moira because they're not our enemies."

"I've lived through what humans do to each other for the slightest imaginable reason." Erik told him in a stiff voice.

"A mutant started World War Three." Charles reminded him. "Being different from the norm doesn't automatically give you the moral high ground."

Erik had no answer to that.

/

They found Angel first, out of Shaw's little entourage. She tried to flee when she saw them but Sean had better control over his powers now and in his new body Hank could jump higher than she had anticipated.

When he ripped out a wing, no one said a word.

"Angel, " Charles said almost gently. "This will hurt less if you don't resist."

Predictably she knew nothing of worth, having been sent away a week ago on a mission to find any human settlements that might not have succumbed to radiation sickness and kill them. Shaw needed food for his army and he was leading them south where the fallout had been lesser.

"Please let me go." She was afraid and in pain but Alex grabbed her from behind by her hair.

"I can have her then?" He looked to everyone, Raven nodded, she hadn't spoken since Cuba, and so did Erik. He would give Alex his revenge.

"What? No, please no...you can't...no..." She was crying, screaming, sobbing while Alex dragged her away, out of sight. Hank flinched each time they heard her scream but no one moved or said a word until the screaming stopped and Alex came back, much later.

He looked satisfied.

/

"I thought it would feel better." He confessed to Erik in the dark of the night, the two of them standing guard over the others.

"But it wasn't really her who killed Darwin. It was me."

"Don't let guilt spoil your revenge." Erik told him intently but he was still not surprised when Alex was dead by morning. Head shots were a quick way to end it but they looked nasty to those who had to bury him.

"Please don't do that." Charles asked quietly after they had buried Alex.

"Never," Erik told him without hesitating.

/

It turned out that no one from Shaw's old group was still with him. Emma had been crushed by the falling CIA building, Azazel ripped apart by a mob of Soviet's and Janos had left without a trace to follow.

That made it considerably easier to slip into Shaw's camp unnoticed. After all with Emma gone Shaw needed a new telepath at his side and Charles was a telepath.

"Erik, what a pleasant surprise, "Shaw drawled when he saw him.

"Not on my side." Shaw always made his anger burn cold not hot like usual.

"Oh, you haven't come to kill me, have you?" Shaw mocked him. "This is our world, Erik. Relax a bit and enjoy it."

"You killed my mother."

"Regrattbale but really more your fault than mine. All I did was asking you to move on little coin." The same coin that was pressed into his palm right now. Erik felt like a little boy again, unable to move except when Shaw told him to, out of fear for the punishment and the memory of his mother's body on the floor.

"No, " he breathed.

"But yes, of course it had been your fault." Shaw seemed honestly hurt that Erik didn't share his opinion.

"Erik," Charles' voice anchored him in the present.

"Really, Erik, you know we don't hurt our kind." Shaw didn't seem to be even a little afraid.

"I'll make an exception for you." Raven hissed, melting from the body of Shaw's guard into her own and slitting his throat before he could react. She hadn't cut deep and Erik watched with growing satisfaction how Shaw struggled to breath while bright red blood was running from his throat.

Erik wasn't Alex. He would not be brought down by his guilt.

/

"Is he dead?" Charles asked when Erik joined him outside Shaw's tent.

"Yes, "Erik answered simply. It was still early morning and from here it seemed as if nothing was wrong with the world, except for the smoke clouds blocking out most of the sun.

"He's the last one." Charles turned to him. "Please, Erik...I can't...No more killing."

"If that makes you happy." Erik replied but it wasn't a promise he or Charles himself would be able to keep.

After all the war wasn't over.

It had only just begun.


End file.
